


what makes you think i've changed

by Anonymous



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 21:46:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21465037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: mina loves nayeon like a plan doomed to fail.
Relationships: Im Nayeon/Myoui Mina
Comments: 2
Kudos: 56
Collections: Anonymous





	what makes you think i've changed

i.

one shouldn’t mistake mina and nayeon’s story for a 21st century romance.

it isn't. they belong to darker times when knights set sail to hunt dragons, heart pumping with naïve hope, only to find a myriad of monsters ready to dazzle them out of thinking about princesses.

mina rarely misses those times, not because it wasn't good — it was — but because she makes it a point of honor to never miss something that isn't coming back. maybe that's where her mistake lies, with nayeon.

still, she doesn't give up. she loves her like a plan doomed to fail.

...

the first time mina meets her, the way she startles when she says her name, _nayeon_, makes her wonder if she's the only one to say it like something else than an insult.

she's dirty, hardly more than a peasant girl, her sharp features emerging from under the grime of travel. she steps off her carriage with heavy steps — her brother can probably hear her from his quarters, but whether or not he does, he doesn't come down to greet her. mina goes without malice, out of politeness.

but she finds im nayeon, and it's the beginning of the end when she says "welcome" and the girl says "thank you" like no one has ever welcomed her anywhere before.

...

there were gardens. there were games. nayeon was human, mina wasn't — those times, she blurred almost deliberately, because vampires can't forget. nayeon’s blood was a lullaby, something crystalline and precious, and mina received every one of her words like a blessing, a chance to atone for her immortality.

and — mina doesn't tell her this, never — she really did believe she could save nayeon, until the very last minute. it hammered against her ribcage. _save nayeon, save nayeon. if you don't do anything else, do that. save nayeon._

but she didn't. that's their story, isn't it? she didn't save im nayeon.

...

mina's brother is a monster. he wasn't always like that, but people started dying and kai drank blood and then he became a monster. it was rather clean-cut, not a drawn-out process but a lightning-quick transformation. mina watched. that's what she does. as for her, she didn't change all that much. she started wearing bespoke gowns and she learned to wait. she decided to never be startled or afraid again.

mina's brother is a monster, and im nayeon was his betrothed — not a special girl, just another victim fed to his capricious temper. kai told mina once, in confidence, that he didn't find her all that pretty. but it didn't matter, since she was just a sacrifice so that kai could be… could be what? more powerful? a greater man — creature?

so mina watches her. she travelled all the way from seoul with kansai-ben still rough in her mouth, inexpert except when she says her own name, and mina teaches her. 

nayeon’s kind and soft, with big eyes and she's playful, she stands next to her in the sun and almost reminds her what the sunlight feels like on her skin.

"is there something wrong with your brother?" she asks, her voice low.

mina doesn't bite her lip. she doesn't look down, she doesn't betray herself. she's too old for that, it would be a rookie mistake. instead, mina looks her in the eye and takes her hand. she says, "why are you asking, miss im? of course there isn't, though i agree kai can be a little... extreme."

as though summoned by his own name, kai appears on the corner of a hedge, sloppy and triumphant, doused in blood from the collarbones up. nayeon bows, "my liege," but as she draws up, she sneaks a glance at mina and she can feel the girl’s words brushing her skin. 

that's not extreme. that's insane. that's monstrous.

...

ii.

"this is a truce," mina says before nayeon can run, handing her a glass of champagne.

nayeon sizes her up, weighing all the things she's been to what she is now, a beast hidden in lady’s clothing. "fine," she says.

her hand slides over the table, not to cover nayeon’s but only to connect their fingertips, as if love for a monster were something you could transmit by touch, a sort of contagious disease.

"you've changed," she says.

nayeon tilts her head, analyzes her. “you haven't," is what she decides on. mina doesn't know if that's something else she should be sorry for.

when she finally talks to her, it's where they belong — in the whodunit dark of an alley, where only the moonlit angles of nayeon’s face emerge, fierce. 

"i found you first," she says.

"i don't belong to you," nayeon bites back, the darkness forcing her voice down to a whisper. "or to kai, for that matter."

mina’s thumb steals a caress over the plush of her cheek. "i know."

the answer seems to confound nayeon; she flounders.

"good night, nayeon,” she says.

it's been a long time since mina wished for human slowness. still, that night, she finds herself wanting to know if the hand nayeon reached was meant to touch her or to make sure she was gone.

...

there is still the overwhelming urge to protect nayeon, when she sees her face crop up in the countries she breezes through in her flight. sometimes, mina wishes she had the courage to go to her, slip her arms around her waist and say, soothingly, "you can stop running now." she wishes she could mean it.

but kai will never stop hunting her. not now when his pride has been wounded, not ever. there's nothing mina can do because as strong as her love for nayeon is, her love for her family is stronger. always. 

no, she corrects himself — it isn't love, it's obligation. it's twisted and dark. it’s a root that will never be torn out. it's gangrenous.

but maybe that's what love is. maybe she's the naïve one, after all.

...

because nayeon isn't some frail princess, or so mina comes to realize — she never was. she finds her on a street corner in xiamen, where she definitely shouldn't be but is anyway. she watches as she lures a leather-jacketed young man right into her arms and sinks her teeth into his neck, drinking with long, drawn-out breaths.

she watches for as long as she can before stepping out of the shadows, walking towards her. nayeon wipes the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand, and for the first time since she's appeared, mina notices that she doesn't look lost, that she doesn't look confused.

"nayeon," she croaks out, her voice thick with the hangul she stole from her.

nayeon smiles. "mina."

she searched for nayeon for a long time, intent on dragging her back to her brother with chained hands, screaming. she wanted to break her fangs and her neck. she wanted to destroy her.

but nayeon doesn't care. she's im nayeon, mina understands. she's fearless.

nayeon strides forward in the night, and kisses her. mina had never imagined kissing her back like that — like sharing a meal, like burning, like being human again.

nayeon licks her lips afterwards, red from so much more than blood. "i've wanted to do that for a long time," she says, her eyes impenetrable, neither cold nor sweet.

...

mina holds nayeon’s breath under a blade.

"you won't kill me," nayeon says.

"no. but i can make you pay."

and maybe mina’s forgotten what exactly she's supposed to make her pay for this time. maybe nayeon’s the only one who keeps track, because she keeps taking all those quests for immortal revenge as a way to get nayeon close, to see her profile the moment before she jumps, her lips heaving with contained breath.

nayeon looks at her, the jar of a thousand stories, diffracted, divided and yet truer than anyone she’s ever met. "you love me," she says like a surprise gift.

"yes," mina answers as the blade descends, and it drowns in her screams.

...

iii.

"nayeon,” she murmurs in the dark thickness of nayeon’s hair, "are you going to keep running forever?"

her laughter is bitter. "it's the only thing i'm good at."

mina doesn't argue, doesn't ask her to stay. she wouldn't be able to keep her love for her contained, and it's the kind of love that burns cities, ransacks homes and pillages treasures.

when nayeon turns around to face her, her skin is smooth, smells almost sickly sweet. "did you really intend to save me?"

they both know there's no use talking about the past, and yet she asks. sometimes mina thinks it's one of their curses, having to lug around their regrets for eternity, a punishment more cruel than lust for human blood.

mina tightens her arms around her. she used to want to kill her once, and this instinct isn't much different, pounds just as strongly in her undead heart. "i don't know," she murmurs. "i guess we never will."

...

"you wear it well."

nayeon chuckles coquettishly, her hands rising to the diamonds around her neck. "thank you," she says.

"i didn't mean the diamonds. i meant the century."

her brows furrow, the comment sobers her up — as though she'd forgotten for a second that she was more than human, a creature. that, too, she wears well.

"it's not too hard," she says. "once you've mastered the cellphone and the art of trashy clothing, you've got it under your belt."

mina can't kiss her without her fingers in her hair, and nayeon’s nails digging into the small of her back. without trying to touch all of her there is to touch, trying to consume her, trying to eat her up so she won't wake up in the morning and go and break her heart like she has to. just because their story is set in stone.

but mina doesn't resist when nayeon says, "come here," in a growl.

she turns to nothing in front of nayeon.

...

kai told her once, on a day when he was terrible, blood dripping down his chin, "love will be the death of you, mina. love is the death of everyone."

and mina heard what he was saying: _look at me, i'm not dead_ — because it's always like that with kai, it's always about him. and mina surprised herself by thinking, _maybe i want to die_. she was never given the choice, after all.

but she'll figure it out, and if love kills her, well — she could have chosen a worse way to go.

...

iv.

in the end, love doesn't kill mina. it doesn't kill nayeon, either. but something else does.

she’s there when it happens. kai is talking to nayeon, making one deal or another, and she's standing in front of him, not afraid but coiled, ready to spring should the need present itself, sneaking glances at mina from underneath her eyelashes. and mina thinks, maybe —

but then a blade comes out of nowhere, not even special or beautiful, a common wooden dagger, and mina watches as it tears the skin of nayeon’s throat — the blood leaps out like it couldn't wait to get out, a geyser — mina jumps forward, not trying to understand what is happening, just the primal urge. nayeon’s hands flail to clutch her throat —

and a second blow, this time to the heart, of course. the dagger sticks with one swift movement of the wrist and nayeon falls backwards, gasping, her hands already shriveled, her eyes —

"huh," says kai, grinning like the careless monster he is, "i didn't think that would work."

mina kneels.

...

kai tries to get her to leave the body, but it's enough that he knows she will eventually. he leaves to better purchases, his lips curling, as though mina was being ungrateful.

"believe me, sister,” he says as he leaves the room, "i've done you a favor," and mina wonders, _how on earth can he think he's capable of love?_

she bows her head, her forehead touching nayeon's. there are so many things to say and so little time to say them. even death, death more than anything, is restless.

"this is the second time i've killed you, nayeon," she says then, instead of a gentle word, instead of an apology.

...

she buries her that same night, alone. nayeon doesn't need a burial, would probably have been happy burning in a boat, drifting ablaze on the smooth black surface of a silent lake.

mina’s the one who needs it. the humans call it closure, but of course she knows better.

as the ground swallows the body, she looks into nayeon’s eyes, still open, fixing her in accusation. it seems to her that they're saying, _i will haunt you forever_. somehow, it's a small relief.


End file.
